Posts from the ‘Exhibit’ category

Global Justice Ecology Project held two events to celebrate its 15th anniversary on Sept. 14-15, 2018 at ¡Buen Vivir! Gallery for Contemporary Art in Buffalo, NY. Both events include wine and hors d’oeuvres and are free and open to the public. See details below.

¡Buen Vivir! was on a year long hiatus and opened its doors again in September 2018 for Johanna C. Dominguez’s “One World: Issues Across and Through Skins.” This was her first solo exhibit. She sees her camera as “Simply a vehicle” for recording the importance of protest – from Buffalo to Kenya.

And:

THE STORY OF A FOREST

Global Justice Ecology Project 15th Anniversary Party include a special private film showing of The Story of a Forest including talk by the director.

Both Langelle and Dilenno will have a solo exhibit at the CEPA Gallery in 2018. CEPA Gallery’s 2017 Members’ Exhibition features the photography and photo-related work of some of Western New York’s most talented artists. The exhibit runs until March 4, 2017.

The juror was Maiko Tanaka, the new Executive Director at Squeaky Wheel Film and Media Arts Center.

Langelle Photography and the ¡Buen Vivir! Gallery for Contemporary Art are part of Global Justice Ecology Project’s Social Justice Media Program.

Orin Langelle is a concerned photographer, who for four decades has been documenting social and environmental struggles.

Since 1972 Langelle has documented peoples’ resistance to war, corporate globalization, ecological destruction and human rights abuses. His first photographic assignment was to cover the protests against the Vietnam War at the 1972 Republican National Convention in Miami Beach. Langelle’s Exhibition Award photograph was from that first assignment (below).

Republican National Convention—Miami Beach, FL 1972. Wounded soldier from Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) in a wheelchair during protests against the RNC. Photo: Langelle

Langelle says, “I approach my role as concerned photographer by not merely documenting the struggle for social and ecological justice, but by being an active part of it. This has enabled me to garner the trust of many of the subjects I have documented, allowing me access that would not have been possible otherwise. In this way, I have been able to expose the truth that is so often hidden by the powers of injustice.”

He continues, “My work is an historical look at social movements, struggle and everyday life. It is designed to counter the societal amnesia from which we collectively suffer—especially with regard to the history of social and ecological struggles. This is not merely a chronicling of history, but a call out to inspire new generations to participate in the making of a new history. For there has been no time when such a call has been so badly needed.”

When asked about her Exhibit Award photo, Natalie DiIenno says, “I’ve been studying Yves Kline and appropriated that image because he influences my work so much.”

She continued, “I’ve been making blue artworks recently, so he’s been a major reference for the blue and his concepts that deal with the notion of the ‘void’. A whole. That image is just a more literal explanation of this idea than his blue paintings (and my blue abstract photographs).”

[Note]: Many in the art world consider Yves Klein the most influential, prominent, and controversial French artist to emerge in the 1950s. He is remembered above all for his use of a single color, the rich shade of ultramarine that he made his own: International Klein Blue. Klein (1928 – 1962) said, “The imagination is the vehicle of sensibility. Transported by the imagination, we attain life, life itself, which is absolute art.”

Other Exhibits that Opened January 27 at CEPA

Located in Buffalo’s historic Market Arcade Complex, CEPA Gallery is a full-service contemporary photography and visual arts center with impact in both the local and national communities serving approximately 300,000 individuals annually.

Originally incorporated as the Center for Exploratory and Perceptual Art to serve as a community darkroom and exhibition space, CEPA Gallery was founded during the Alternative Space Movement in May 1974 by recent graduates of the University of Buffalo.

Throughout its history, CEPA has strived to reflect the creative priorities for working artists, while growing to accommodate the educational and social needs of Western New York’s diverse community. Over the years, CEPA has evolved into a nationally recognized arts center that is truly international in scope, but regional in spirit. It is now one of the oldest and largest not-for-profit photography-based arts centers in the United States.

CEPA remains dedicated to photography and the photo-related and electronic arts, and has developed its programs and opportunities to provide working artists, urban youth, and other individuals with the necessary programs and facilities for the production and reception of contemporary art.

Volunteers Needed for the !Buen Vivir! Gallery
The ¡Buen Vivir! Gallery for Contemporary Art at 148 Elmwood Ave, Buffalo NY, is currently seeking volunteers to help with staffing the gallery during open hours on Fridays 6 – 8 p.m. & Saturdays 1 – 3 p.m., as well as helping with special projects. Our educational gallery with free admission hosts 3-4 shows per year and was founded to present an historical look at movements for change, struggle and everyday life. If interested please email Carolyn Lansom, Gallery Manager, <carolyn@globaljusticeecology.org> or call 716.931.5833.
Our current show runs through, April 29th Climate Change, System Change, Personal Changefeatures two exhibits:
1. Climate Change—Realities and Resistance, photographs by Critical Information Collective (CIC)
2. Black on the Ground, White in the Air, artwork by Ashley Powell
This multi-faceted art and photographic show is designed to challenge viewers to think about what type of changes are necessary to effectively confront the root causes driving the extreme weather that is occurring globally.

¡Buen Vivir! Gallery for Contemporary Art announces a special Artist’s Talk for the show Climate Change, System Change, Personal Change by artist Ashley Powell on First Friday, April 1 at 7 p.m. The gallery is located at 148 Elmwood Avenue in Buffalo, NY’s Allentown District.

Artist’s Talk: Powell will discuss her work and its relation to environmental racism, a topic of special relevance right now in light of the rising awareness of rising rates of lead poisoning in poor children and children of color in Flint Michigan, as well as right here in Buffalo. Powell’s installation challenges people to think about environmental racism and classism.

• Black on the Ground, White in the Air, artwork from Ashley Powell • Climate Change—Realities and Resistance, by international photographers from the Critical Information Collective makes its US debut after hanging at the UN Paris climate summit in December

The artist’s talk will be held on First Friday, April 1 at 7 p.m. at the ¡Buen Vivir! Gallery for Contemporary Art, 148 Elmwood Avenue in Buffalo. The gallery will be open for First Friday from 6-9 p.m.

Paris, France – Telling the story of the growing global demand for climate justice, featuring images from photographers in Australia, Croatia, Romania, the UK and the USA. This exhibition is on display in Paris during the UNFCCC COP 21 negotiations, at the Climate Action Zone (ZAC), 7-11 December. The address is Room Ecuries C, Centquatre, 5, rue Curial, 75019 Paris. (The closest metro stations are Stalingrad and Riquet.)

This year the party and closing reception take place on Thursday, December 17th from 6-9 p.m. at the ¡Buen Vivir! Gallery at 148 Elmwood Avenue in Buffalo.

Camel’s Hump, Vermont. Photo: Petermann

Gallery Director Orin Langelle and GJEP Executive Director Anne Petermann will give brief presentations at 7 p.m. about the mission of the gallery and GJEP including ways you can get involved.

There will be music, wine, hors d’oeuvres, and we will celebrate the Solstice and the return of longer days.

We also hope to have some exciting news to share about a new venue for Orin Langelle’s historic exhibit: The End of the Game – The Last Word from Paradise, Revisited. If you haven’t seen it yet, this will be your last chance to see it in Buffalo…

Truman Capote with Peter Beard at Studio 54 during Beard’s 40th birthday party. This photo by Orin Langelle was published in the Adventures and Misadventures of Peter Beard in Africa, by Jon Bowmaster (1993)

Below is an edited excerpt from the Gallery statement about the exhibit:

Art means many different things

At the ¡Buen Vivir! Gallery, the exhibits we choose illustrate and demonstrate the intersection of the realms of art and politics regarding the times in which we live.

Sometimes art should creatively communicate the reality hidden behind the propaganda we encounter in or our daily lives, where most communication is designed to sell something you probably do not need or that makes you feel good about yourself–from McMansions to reality shows, to drugs and/or belief systems with no mental challenge.

A group of artists and activists worked almost a month to turn a pile of obsolete office equipment seized from Burning Books co-owner Leslie James Pickering during the 2001 FBI raid into an installation highlighting free speech, art and state repression.

In addition to the now released office equipment (still tagged as evidence), the show features censored government documents, photographs, first-hand accounts, and statements by Pickering and Civil Rights attorney Michael Kuzma.

It is ludicrous and absurd that the FBI held these objects for fourteen years. If there were any incriminating evidence, it would likely have been found very quickly. The seizure of the equipment, and its confiscation for fourteen years, was intended to squash free speech.

This exhibit is about art, the repression and liberation of free speech and maybe a subliminal or not so subliminal message: In a world where we see more and more potentially apocalyptic scenes, especially with increasingly common climate catastrophes, is “civilization” and the dominant economic system pushing the inhabitants on Earth to the brink?

A photo exhibit, The End of the Game – The Last Word from Paradise, Revisited opened at the ¡Buen Vivir! Gallery in Buffalo. Friday, 9 October 2015. Photos by Orin Langelle. It will continue through 17 December with a special Allentown First Friday Reception on 6 November.

The Gallery is located at 148 Elmwood Avenue in Buffalo. Hours are from 1:30 to p.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 6 to 8 p.m. Friday evenings and I to 3 p.m. on Saturdays.

Jackie Kennedy Onassis and Peter Beard at his 1977, International Center of Photography opening in Manhattan, The End of the Game – The Last Word from Paradise.
2015 is the 50th anniversary of artist Peter Beard’s book, The End of the Game – The Last Word from Paradise. Beard spent many years in Africa documenting the impact of Western civilization on elephants, other wildlife and the people who lived there. In 1977 Beard had the first one-person show at Manhattan’s International Center of Photography, The End of the Game – The Last Word from Paradise.
Over four months, Orin Langelle photographed Beard and the people, many celebrities, that were part of Beard’s life prior to and during the exhibit’s installation and the subsequent opening, plus Beard’s 40th birthday party at Studio 54 in January of 1978.
Langelle’s photographs are of events surrounding Beard’s 1977’s The End of the Game – The Last Word from Paradise. The ICP installation consisted of Beard’s photographs, elephant carcasses, burned diaries, taxidermy, African artifacts, books and personal memorabilia. In the early 60s Beard worked at Kenya’s Tsavo National Park, during which time he photographed and documented the demise of over 35,000 elephants and 5,000 Black Rhinos.

Poster: Peter Beard photos

Langelle’s work at the International Center of Photography gave him a rare insight into Beard, whose controversial views on ecology then, are just as relevant today.

With the support of the Peter Beard Studio, ¡Buen Vivir! presents this exhibition to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Beard’s book, The End of the Game – The Last Word from Paradise.

The book, soon to be released, can be ordered from Taschen.
Below are two photos from the opening of the ¡Buen Vivir! Gallery exhibit in Buffalo last Friday 9 October taken by Anne Petermann, Executive Director, Global Justice Ecology Project.

Please come to this closing reception and gallery walk-through – refreshments include wine and hors d’oeuvres.

Struggles for Justice is the last show in the present gallery space. The ¡Buen Vivir Gallery is moving to the first floor of the same location at 148 Elmwood Ave., in Buffalo’s Allentown. The Grand re-opening of the gallery will be on 7 August 2015 with a photo exhibit by Anne Petermann entitled Triumph Over Tragedy.

Anne Petermann is the Executive Director of Global Justice Ecology Project and the Coordinator of the international Campaign to STOP Genetically Engineered Trees.